3 years ago...

March 19,2003 started out as any day would...but by the end of the day we were sitting in Children's Hospital wondering just what all lay ahead of us. Our daughter, Rosalie, 7 at the time, had gone out to the shop with her brother to help and be with daddy. I finished clearing away dinner and opened the door to give some scraps to the cats and heard the screaming. Instantly I knew something was drastically wrong and I ran for the shop. I got there just as John was releasing her hand from the wide belt sander. I saw the look of horror on his face and decided that someone has to stay in control here so I didn't look at it...just grabbed her and basically carried her to the house, grabbed some towels and wrapped it up. Told my husband to call the ambulance and proceeded to lay Rosalie down to help with the shock. She was crying and kept repeating how bad it hurt. It seemed to be ages till the ambulance came and took over. They were able to give her morphine as soon as they got her loaded and we set out for Meadville. John took our other preschoolers and the baby and set out to find them a home. I was nursing our 7 month old and told him to bring him along because I knew we were in for an ordeal. She was transferred to Pittsburgh and John again was left to find his way alone with the baby. Upon arrival there, she was seen by a plastic surgeon that didn't offer us a lot of hope for her hand. But she was stabilized and they asked if it would be okay to wait for another plastic surgeon to see her. That was an answer to our prayers because he offered hope and reconstruction of the hand. The whole palm of the hand was gone, the only thing keeping her fingers alive was the back of her hand. Her thumb was broken badly at the second joint. Some of the bone and all the tendons and most of the muscles and nerves were gone. Thus began an almost 5 week stay in the hospital in Pittsburgh. By the way I had to send my baby home the next day with John and have someone switch him to a bottle. I was able to pump my milk but decided not to keep up the supply because I didn't know what all was going to happen and didn't have the energy to do what was needed to keep up the supply. I just pumped for comfort until my milk supply dwindled away. Rosalie was in so much pain...we cried with her much of the time. They eventually got pain control involved and differant meds were tried...it was quite an ordeal to keep her comfortable most days in the beginning. To be continued...